The Minister's Wooing

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  “Thank you, my beautiful child, for so good a thought. It is truly a noble sentiment, though practicable only to those gifted with angelic natures.”

  “Oh, I trust not,” said Mary, earnestly touched and wrought upon, more than she herself knew, by the beautiful eyes, the modulated voice, the charm of manner, which seemed to enfold her like an Italian summer.

  Burr sighed,—a real sigh of his better nature, but passed out with all the more freedom that he felt it would interest his fair companion, who, for the time being, was the one woman of the world to him.

  “Pure and artless souls like yours,” he said, “cannot measure the temptations of those who are called to the real battle of life in a world like this. How many nobler aspirations fall withered in the fierce heat and struggle of the conflict!”

  He was saying then what he really felt, often bitterly felt,—but using this real feeling advisedly, and with skilful tact, for the purpose of the hour.

  What was this purpose? To win the regard, the esteem, the tenderness of a religious, exalted nature shrined in a beautiful form,—to gain and hold ascendency. It was a life-long habit,—one of those forms of refined self-indulgence which he pursued, thoughtless and reckless of consequences. He had found now the key-note of the character; it was a beautiful instrument, and he was well pleased to play on it.

  “I think, Sir,” said Mary, modestly, “that you forget the great provision made for our weakness.”

  “How?” he said.

  “They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength,” she replied, gently.

  He looked at her, as she spoke these words, with a pleased, artistic perception of the contrast between her worldly attire and the simple, religious earnestness of her words.

  “She is entrancing!” he thought to himself,—“so altogether fresh and naïve!”

  “My sweet saint,” he said, “such as you are the appointed guardians of us coarser beings. The prayers of souls given up to worldliness and ambition effect little. You must intercede for us. I am very orthodox, you see,” he added, with that subtle smile which sometimes irradiated his features. “I am fully aware of all that your reverend doctor tells you of the worthlessness of unregenerate doings; and so, when I see angels walking below, I try to secure ‘a friend at court.’ ”

  He saw that Mary looked embarrassed and pained at this banter, and therefore added, with a delicate shading of earnestness,—

  “In truth, my fair young friend, I hope you will sometimes pray for me. I am sure, if I have any chance of good, it will come in such a way.”

  “Indeed I will,” said Mary, fervently,—her little heart full, tears in her eyes, her breath coming quick,—and she added, with a deepening color, “I am sure, Mr. Burr, that there should be a covenant blessing for you, if for any one, for you are the son of a holy ancestry.” 1

  “Eh, bien, mon ami, qu’est ce que tu fais ici?”2 said a gay voice behind a clump of box; and immediately there started out, like a French picture from its frame, a dark-eyed figure, dressed like a Marquise of Louis XIV’s time, with powdered hair, sparkling with diamonds.

  “Rien que m’amuser,”3 he replied, with ready presence of mind, in the same tone, and then added,—“Permit me, Madame, to present to you a charming specimen of our genuine New England flowers. Miss Scudder, I have the honor to present you to the acquaintance of Madame de Frontignac.”

  “I am very happy,” said the lady, with that sweet, lisping accentuation of English which well became her lovely mouth. “Miss Scudder, I hope, is very well.”

  Mary replied in the affirmative,—her eyes resting the while with pleased admiration on the graceful, animated face and diamond-bright eyes which seemed looking her through.

  “Monsieur la trouve bien séduisante apparemment,”4 said the stranger, in a low, rapid voice, to the gentleman, in a manner which showed a mingling of pique and admiration.

  “Petite jalouse! rassure-toi,”5 he replied, with a look and manner into which, with that mobile force which was peculiar to him, he threw the most tender and passionate devotion. “Ne suis-je pas à toi tout à fait?”6—and as he spoke, he offered her his other arm. “Allow me to be an unworthy link between the beauty of France and America.”

  The lady swept a proud curtsy backward, bridled her beautiful neck, and signed for them to pass her. “I am waiting here for a friend,” she said.

  “Whatever is your will is mine,” replied Burr, bowing with proud humility, and passing on with Mary to the supper-room.

  Here the company were fast assembling, in that high tide of good-humor which generally sets in at this crisis of the evening.

  The scene, in truth, was a specimen of a range of society which in those times could have been assembled nowhere else but in Newport. There stood Dr. Hopkins in the tranquil majesty of his lordly form, and by his side, the alert, compact figure of his contemporary and theological opponent, Dr. Stiles, who, animated by the social spirit of the hour, was dispensing courtesies to right and left with the debonair grace of the trained gentleman of the old school. Near by, and engaging from time to time in conversation with them, stood a Jewish Rabbin,7 whose olive complexion, keen eye, and flowing beard gave a picturesque and foreign grace to the scene. Colonel Burr, one of the most brilliant and distinguished men of the New Republic, and Colonel de Frontignac, who had won for himself laurels in the corps of La Fayette,8 during the recent revolutionary struggle, with his brilliant, accomplished wife, were all unexpected and distinguished additions to the circle.

  Burr gently cleared the way for his fair companion, and, purposely placing her where the full light of the wax chandeliers set off her beauty to the best advantage, devoted himself to her with a subserviency as deferential as if she had been a goddess.

  For all that, he was not unobservant, when, a few moments after, Madame de Frontignac was led in, on the arm of a Senator, with whom she was presently in full flirtation.

  He observed, with a quiet, furtive smile, that, while she rattled and fanned herself, and listened with apparent attention to the flatteries addressed to her, she darted every now and then a glance, keen as a steel blade towards him and his companion. He was perfectly adroit in playing off one woman against another, and it struck him with a pleasant sense of oddity, how perfectly unconscious his sweet and saintly neighbor was of the position in which she was supposed to stand by her rival; and poor Mary, all this while, in her simplicity, really thought that she had seen traces of what she would have called the “strivings of the spirit” in his soul. Alas! that a phrase weighed down with such mysterious truth and meaning should ever come to fall on the ear as mere empty cant!

  With Mary it was a living form,—as were all her words; for in nothing was the Puritan education more marked than in the earnest reality and truthfulness which it gave to language; and even now, as she stands by his side, her large blue eye is occasionally fixed in dreamy reverie as she thinks what a triumph of Divine grace it would be, if these inward movings of her companion’s mind should lead him, as all the pious of New England hoped, to follow in the footsteps of President Edwards, and forms wishes that she could see him some time when she could talk to him undisturbed.

  She was too humble and too modest fully to accept the delicious flattery which he had breathed, in implying that her hand had had power to unseal the fountains of good in his soul; but still it thrilled through all the sensitive strings of her nature a tremulous flutter of suggestion.

  She had read instances of striking and wonderful conversions from words dropped by children and women,—and suppose some such thing should happen to her! and that this so charming and distinguished and powerful being should be called into the fold of Christ’s Church by her means! No, it was too much to be hoped,—but the very possibility was thrilling.

  When, after supper, Mrs. Scudder and the Doctor made their adieus, Burr’s devotion was still unabated. With an enchanting mixture of reverence and fatherly protection, he waited on her to the last,—shawled he
r with delicate care, and handed her into the small, one-horse wagon,—as if it had been the coach of a duchess.

  “I have pleasant recollections connected with this kind of establishment,” he said, as, after looking carefully at the harness, he passed the reins into Mrs. Scudder’s hands. “It reminds me of school-days and old times. I hope your horse is quite safe, Madam.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Scudder, “I perfectly understand him.”

  “Pardon the suggestion,” he replied;—“what is there that a New England matron does not understand? Doctor, I must call by-and-by, and have a little talk with you,—my theology, you know, needs a little straightening.”

  “We should all be happy to see you, Colonel Burr,” said Mrs. Scudder; “we live in a very plain way, it is true,”—

  “But can always find place for a friend,—that, I trust, is what you meant to say,” he replied, bowing, with his own peculiar grace, as the carriage drove off.

  “Really, a most charming person is this Colonel Burr,” said Mrs. Scudder.

  “He seems a very frank, ingenuous young person,” said the Doctor; “one cannot but mourn that the son of such gracious parents should be left to wander into infidelity.”

  “Oh, he is not an infidel,” said Mary; “he is far from it, though I think his mind is a little darkened on some points.”

  “Ah,” said the Doctor, “have you had any special religious conversation with him?”

  “A little,” said Mary blushing; “and it seems to me that his mind is perplexed somewhat in regard to the doings of the unregenerate, —I fear that it has rather proved a stumbling-block in his way; but he showed so much feeling!—I could really see the tears in his eyes!”

  “His mother was a most godly woman, Mary,” said the Doctor. “She was called from her youth, and her beautiful person became a temple for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Aaron Burr is a child of many prayers, and therefore there is hope that he may yet be effectually called. He studied awhile with Bellamy,”9 he added, musingly, “and I have often doubted whether Bellamy took just the right course with him.”

  “I hope he will call and talk with you,” said Mary, earnestly; “what a blessing to the world, if such talents as his could become wholly consecrated!”

  “Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble are called,” said the Doctor; “yet if it would please the Lord to employ my instrumentality and prayers, how much should I rejoice! I was struck,” he added, “to-night, when I saw those Jews present, with the thought that it was, as it were, a type of that last ingathering, when both Jew and Gentile shall sit down lovingly together to the gospel feast.10 It is only by passing over and forgetting these present years, when so few are called and the gospel makes such slow progress, and looking unto that glorious time, that I find comfort. If the Lord but use me as a dumb stepping-stone to that heavenly Jerusalem, I shall be content.”

  Thus they talked while the wagon jogged soberly homeward, and the frogs and the turtles and the distant ripple of the sea made a drowsy, mingling concert in the summer-evening air.

  Meanwhile Colonel Burr had returned to the lighted rooms, and it was not long before his quick eye espied Madame de Frontignac standing pensively in a window-recess, half hid by the curtain. He stole softly up behind her and whispered something in her ear.

  In a moment she turned on him a face glowing with anger, and drew back haughtily; but Burr remarked the glitter of tears, not quite dried even by the angry flush of her eyes.

  “In what have I had the misfortune to offend?” he said, crossing his arms upon his breast. “I stand at the bar, and plead, Not guilty.”

  He spoke in French, and she replied in the same smooth accents, —

  “It was not for her to dispute Monsieur’s right to amuse himself.”

  Burr drew nearer, and spoke in those persuasive, pleading tones which he had ever at command, and in that language whose very structure in its delicate tutoiement11 gives such opportunity for gliding on through shade after shade of intimacy and tenderness, till gradually the haughty fire of the eyes was quenched in tears, and, in the sudden revulsion of a strong, impulsive nature, she said what she called words of friendship, but which carried with them all the warmth of that sacred fire which is given to woman to light and warm the temple of home, and which sears and scars when kindled for any other shrine.

  And yet this woman was the wife of his friend and associate!

  Colonel de Frontignac was a grave and dignified man of forty-five. Virginie de Frontignac had been given him to wife when but eighteen,—a beautiful, generous, impulsive, wilful girl. She had accepted him gladly, for very substantial reasons. First, that she might come out of the convent where she was kept for the very purpose of educating her in ignorance of the world she was to live in. Second, that she might wear velvet, lace, cashmere, and jewels. Third, that she might be a Madame, free to go and come, ride, walk, and talk, without surveillance. Fourth,—and consequent upon this,—that she might go into company and have admirers and adorers.

  She supposed, of course, that she loved her husband;—whom else should she love? He was the only man, except her father and brothers, that she had ever seen; and in the fortnight that preceded their marriage did he not send her the most splendid bon-bons every day, with bouquets of every pattern that ever taxed the brain of a Parisian artiste?—was not the corbeille de mariage12 a wonder and an envy to all her acquaintance?—and after marriage had she not found him always a steady, indulgent friend, easy to be coaxed as any grave papa?

  On his part, Monsieur de Frontignac cherished his young wife as a beautiful, though somewhat absurd little pet, and amused himself with her frolics and gambols, as the gravest person often will with those of a kitten.

  It was not until she knew Aaron Burr that poor Virginie de Frontignac came to that great awakening of her being which teaches woman what she is, and transforms her from a careless child to a deep-hearted, thinking, suffering human being.

  For the first time, in his society she became aware of the charm of a polished and cultivated mind, able with exquisite tact to adapt itself to hers, to draw forth her inquiries, to excite her tastes, to stimulate her observation. A new world awoke around her,—the world of literature and taste, of art and of sentiment; she felt somehow, as if she had gained the growth of years in a few months. She felt within herself the stirring of dim aspiration, the uprising of a new power of self-devotion and self-sacrifice, a trance of hero-worship, a cloud of high ideal images,—the lighting up, in short, of all that God has laid, ready to be enkindled, in a woman’s nature, when the time comes to sanctify her as the pure priestess of a domestic temple. But, alas! it was kindled by one who did it only for an experiment, because he felt an artistic pleasure in the beautiful light and heat, and cared not, though it burned a soul away.

  Burr was one of those men willing to play with any charming woman the game of those navigators who give to simple natives glass beads and feathers in return for gold and diamonds,—to accept from a woman her heart’s blood in return for such odds and ends and clippings as he can afford her from the serious ambition of life.

  Look in with us one moment, now that the party is over, and the busy hum of voices and blaze of lights has died down to midnight silence and darkness; we make you clairvoyant, and you may look through the walls of this stately old mansion, still known as that where Rochambeau13 held his headquarters, into this room, where two wax candles are burning on a toilette table, before an old-fashioned mirror. The slumberous folds of the curtains are drawn with stately gloom around a high bed, where Colonel de Frontignac has been for many hours quietly asleep; but opposite, resting with one elbow on the toilette table, her long black hair hanging down over her night-dress, and the brush lying listlessly in her hand, sits Virginie, looking fixedly into the dreamy depths of the mirror.

  Scarcely twenty yet, all unwarned of the world of power and passion that lay slumbering in her girl’s heart, led in the meshes of custom and society t
o utter vows and take responsibilities of whose nature she was no more apprised than is a slumbering babe, and now at last fully awake, feeling the whole power of that mysterious and awful force which we call love, yet shuddering to call it by its name, but by its light beginning to understand all she is capable of, and all that marriage should have been to her! She struggles feebly and confusedly with her fate, still clinging to the name of duty, and baptizing as friendship this strange new feeling which makes her tremble through all her being. How can she dream of danger in such a feeling, when it seems to her the awakening of all that is highest and noblest within her? She remembers when she thought of nothing beyond an opera-ticket or a new dress and now she feels that there might be to her a friend for whose sake she would try to be noble and great and good,—for whom all self-denial, all high endeavor, all difficult virtue would become possible,—who would be to her life, inspiration, order, beauty.

  She sees him as woman always sees the man she loves,—noble, great, and good;—for when did a loving woman ever believe a man otherwise?—too noble, too great, too high, too good, she thinks, for her,—poor, trivial, ignorant coquette,—poor, childish, trifling Virginie! Has he not commanded armies? she thinks,—is he not eloquent in the senate? and yet what interest he has taken in her, a poor, unformed, ignorant creature!—she never tried to improve herself till since she knew him. And he is so considerate, too,—so respectful, so thoughtful and kind, so manly and honorable, and has such a tender friendship for her, such a brotherly and fatherly solicitude! and yet, if she is haughty or imperious or severe, how humbled and grieved he looks! How strange that she could have power over such a man!